Recently, a variety of optical discs have been proposed as disc-shaped recording mediums that are recordable and that can be dismounted from a recording and/or reproducing apparatus. These recordable optical discs have been proposed as large-capacity mediums of several GBs and are felt to be promising as mediums for recording AV (audio visual) signals, such as video signals.
Among the encoding systems for digitally compressing digital video signals, there is an MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) 2 system. The MPEG 2 is also finding application in recording digital video signals on recording mediums. For example, in recording digital video signals on a recording medium, the video signals are encoded in accordance with the MPEG2 system to record an encoded bitstream on a recording medium. In the digital television (TV) broadcast, which recently made its debut, a video program, encoded in accordance with the MPEG2 system, is transmitted in accordance with the format termed a transport stream. In recording the digital broadcast on an information recording medium, such a system is used in which the transport stream is recorded in the form of digital signals, without decoding or re-encoding.
The disc medium is superior in random accessibility. In recording digital video signals on a disc-shaped recording medium, by exploiting this property, recording may be started from an arbitrary vacant area even if plural vacant areas are present distributed on the disc medium, these vacant areas being sequentially searched to continue the recording in arbitrary recording areas.
If, in a recording medium where limitations are imposed on the number of times of allowed re-writing operations, the rewriting occurs in a congested fashion in the same area on the recording medium, deficiencies tend to be produced in this area. For example, if a recording apparatus exercises control so that recording is started at all times from the vacant area lying towards the inner rim side of the disc-shaped recording medium, the probability is high that the inner rim side of the disc tends to become a defective area at an earlier time than its outer rim side.
If a defective area is produced in the disc, such area becomes unusable, so that the total possible recording time for the disc, that is the total recordable data volume, is decreased. This is perplexing to a user of the recording apparatus because the total possible recording time differs from disc to disc even although the species of the disc are the same. In order to prevent such problem from occurring in the case of a recording medium with a limited number of times of possible rewriting operations, such recording management is required in which the entire recording area is repeatedly recorded in an unbiased fashion.